We have a bunch of people in our Startup Hub community who dabble with, or have e-commerce as a core string to their bow; so it seemed only fitting to focus on it for this weeks Friday five. And while you may be familiar with the ASOS’s and Alibaba’s of the world, what else is happening in online buying? Especially given the recent arrival of Amazon down-under or news about the growing e-commerce landscape in China (check out the video above). We take a dive into the latest news, little lessons and surprising new steps for the world of online buying.

Alliances are in the air
There has been plenty of news coming out of Australia as both brick and mortar stores, and online retailers called in the reinforcements as Amazon entered the market. One of the more exciting plays has been the creation of alliances, namely between Aussie ecomm players Catch Group (formerly Catch of the day) and Lux Group.

“Catch Group will become a pure-play e-commerce business, acquiring Lux Group’s Brands Exclusive and TheHome, which will complement Catch.com.au, GroceryRun, Mumgo and Pumpkin Patch.

The two companies have also established a joint venture called Lux Everyday that will combine the daily deals businesses owned by Catch and Lux. With 50/50 ownership, the JV combines Scoopon, Cudo, LivingSocial, Deals.com.au and New Zealand-based TreatMe.”Read more here

E-commerce lessons from General Manager of UberEATS, Nic Robertson
Lessons in this piece from The Media Online focus on four key areas, Build, Scale and Repeat. But what is probably most striking from Nic’s lessons is the “scale” section, where Nic talks about the rise of tech, but also the need to focus on empathy and those personal feelings consumers attach to products; areas that are traditionally richer in the realm of brick and mortar retail. What this highlights is that those that thrive in an e-commerce world will be those that navigate the world of speed, stock-turn and data. But who can weave human experiences and the ‘why’ of their business into every transaction.Read more here

Is E-commerce a threat to wall-street?
With everything from Proprietary credit cards, through to loyalty and incentive programs; there are apparently five ways ecomm is wall street’s biggest threat. Although you may not buy into the hype, the article does quickly summarise some of the core stuff happening right now in the industry.Read more here

How is AI pushing the e-commerce cart forward?
“AI can also quickly differentiate between strict and flexible keywords, and based on the search history of the visitor, help showcase the highest quality search results. Beyond this, consider aspects such as what kind of advertising to showcase, what kind of content to introduce to customers, what kind of add-on packages they’ll appreciate, etc. AI and Machine Learning are able to analyze consumer behaviour to answer all these questions, making it possible for e-commerce retailers to understand what you will like even before you know it, and offer products accordingly.Read more here

While brick and mortar are going online, online is going real life?
There has been a bit of news recently about big traditional brands (finally) heading online from high-end fashion brands like Céline, through to Bay-owned Lord & Taylor selling on Walmart.com and Swiss Watchmaker Omega starting to sell their finery online. At the same time, online brands are venturing forth with ‘pop-ups’ and traditional retail solutions to get fickle shoppers familiar with their wares.Read more here